Jenday Conure

The Jenday Conure, also called the Jandaya Parakeet, is a medium-sized, long-tailed parrot native to northeastern Brazil. It is one of the most brightly colored members of the Aratinga genus, combining a golden-yellow head and chest with an orange-red belly patch and bright green wings and tail.

Appearance

• Head, neck, and breast: rich golden-yellow, often with orange tinges on the face
• Belly: orange to reddish-orange patch
• Wings and back: bright green, with blue tips on the primary flight feathers
• Tail: long, green above and olive-blue below, tapering to a point
• Eyes: dark, surrounded by a bare whitish eye-ring
• Bill: black to dark gray, strongly hooked

Sexes look alike, and juveniles are duller with more green mottling on the head that clears with age.

Key field marks

• Golden-yellow head and underparts contrasting with green wings
• Orange-red patch on the lower belly
• Blue-tipped flight feathers visible in flight
• Long, pointed olive-green tail
• Bare whitish skin around the eye

Similar species

• Sun Conure (Aratinga solstitialis) is more uniformly orange-yellow overall with less green on the body and is found in the Guiana Shield, not overlapping with the Jenday's range.
• Golden-capped Conure (Aratinga auricapillus) has a green body with only the crown and throat gold, lacking the Jenday's fully golden head and chest.
• Peach-fronted Conure is smaller, mostly green with only a peach-orange forehead patch, easily separated by its far less colorful plumage.

In the field, the combination of an entirely golden head/breast, orange belly, and green wings is distinctive to the Jenday Conure within its native range.

Range

The Jenday Conure is endemic to a relatively small area of northeastern Brazil, primarily in the states of Ceará, Piauí, Maranhão, and northern Tocantins/Bahia.

Habitat

It favors dry, semi-arid woodland habitats including caatinga scrub, cerrado savanna, palm groves (especially babassu palm stands), gallery forest along rivers, and cultivated areas such as orchards and plantations near forest edge.

Movements

The species is largely sedentary, though flocks may shift locally in response to seasonal fruiting and flowering, following food availability across its home range rather than undertaking long migrations.

Social behavior

Jenday Conures are highly social and gregarious, typically seen in noisy flocks of a dozen to several dozen birds, sometimes mixing with other parakeet species at communal feeding or roosting sites.

Voice

Their calls are loud, harsh, screeching notes given frequently in flight and while perched; flocks are often heard well before they are seen.

Feeding

They forage in the forest canopy and in palm crowns, using their feet to hold food while the bill shells seeds and nuts; corn and other crops are sometimes raided near farmland.

Nesting and breeding

Jenday Conures nest in cavities, most often in dead palm trunks or tree hollows, typically laying a clutch of three to four eggs. Both parents help raise the chicks, and pairs may remain close within the larger flock during the breeding season.